According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the mental health movement in the workplace has been growing for several years. Beginning in 2022, AIC’s Health and Safety (H&S) Network has been working to better understand the mental stresses conservators face in the workplace and developing resources that meet the needs of the community. In 2024, the H&S Network conducted two conservator-base mental health focus groups moderated by Dr. Stephanie Arel, who has conducted research on trauma in memorial museums around the world. Now this program is being expanded to those who work in the wider cultural heritage sector starting with the C2C Care Community and its vibrant collective of small and mid-sized institutions.
For this webinar panelists will present the findings on mental health in the field of conservation and the wider museum worker community. A modified version of the H&S Network mental health survey tailored for those who work in the cultural heritage sector, will be sent out to registered participants and the results shared during the webinar.
Presenters
- Dr. Stephanie N. Arel, Fordham University
- Stephanie Arel teaches at Fordham University. She previously held an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum and served simultaneously as a visiting researcher at New York University (2017-2019). She is the author of Bearing Witness: The Wounds of Mass Trauma at Memorial Museums (Fortress 2023), a book that considers the emotional, spiritual, and physical costs of mediating human suffering in various staff roles at memorial museums around the globe. Her other books include Affect Theory, Shame and Christian Formation (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), Post-Traumatic Public Theology (coeditor, Palgrave Macmillan 2016), Ideology and Utopia in the Twenty-First Century: The Surplus of Meaning in Ricoeur’s Dialectical Concept (coeditor, Lexington 2018), and Probing Human Dignity: Exploring Thresholds from an Interdisciplinary Perspectives (coeditor, Springer 2024). She holds a certificate in treatment for trauma in the clinical setting from the New York Institute in Psychoanalysis and has been teaching trauma theory and theology for 12 years.
- Stephanie Black, Conservator, Anchorage Museums/Chair, AIC Health & Safety Network
- Stephanie Black is the Conservator at the Anchorage Museum in Anchorage, Alaska and Chair of the American Institute of Conservation’s Health and Safety Network. She specializes in the conservation and care of archaeological, indigenous and world cultures, and natural history collections. Her areas of interest are in collaborative conservation and collections care, laboratory health and safety, mental health in the workplace, and conservation education. Stephanie previously worked as an Assistant Conservator at the Field Museum on the Native North American Hall Renovation Project, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Museum (formerly the Oriental Institute) on their Gallery Enhancement Project, both in Chicago, Illinois. She also worked as an objects’ conservator and laboratory technician for the MSc Conservation Studies program offered at University College London Qatar in Doha, Qatar. Stephanie holds a MSc in Conservation for Archaeology and Museums and a MA in Principles of Conservation from University College London in the United Kingdom, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Art Conservation and Art History from the University of Delaware.
- Dr. Holly Cusack-McVeigh, Indiana University Indianapolis (IUI), Associate Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies, Public Scholar of Collections and Community Curation, Adjunct Associate Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies
- Holly Cusack-McVeigh is a Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies at Indiana University Indianapolis (IUI). She holds appointments as a Public Scholar of Collections and Community Curation and as a Professor of Native American and Indigenous studies. Her research focuses on cultural heritage, repatriation, and toxic heritage. She has worked in the cultural heritage and preservation fields for decades, supporting Native American and Indigenous communities in Alaska, the continental US, Canada, Haiti, New Zealand, Peru, and South Africa.
- Dr. Mark Wilson, Clinical Assistant Professor, Occupational and Environmental Health, Sciences | Biomedical Health Sciences, Purdue University
- Dr. Mark Wilson is a clinical assistant professor for the Occupational & Environmental Health Sciences and the Biomedical Sciences programs in the School of Health Sciences at Purdue University. He received a B.S. and M.S. in industrial hygiene from Purdue University, a Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) degree from National University of Health Sciences., and a Ph.D. in Public Health, with a concentration of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
